CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Nick
“I see you made yourself at home,” Charley said stiffly as I stared at her.
“If you’re mad at me for snooping, then I’m sorry.” I held up the old, faded papers. “But I’m not sorry that I read them. It’s clear you weren’t planning to tell me about this on your own.”
She crossed her arms over her chest and glared at me. “I told you about me and Ben.”
“You didn’t tell me everything.” I glanced at the notes again and felt a strange tightness in my chest. I didn’t like that Charley hadn’t told me the full truth.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t know we were supposed to share every detail of our former lives. I suppose you’re planning to show me old love letters from Heidi?”
My face softened slightly. “These aren’t love letters, Charley. They’re threats.”
“So?” She shrugged. “We both know how it ended. Ben is dead and so is everyone else. The letters don’t mean anything now.”
“Then why did you keep them?” I gestured to the other items in the box. “Why did you keep all of this?”
“I don’t know why.” She shrugged helplessly and shook her head. “I don’t know why I made any of the choices that I made.”
“Look, Charley. I can’t make you open up to me. But I think you want to talk about this with someone, and when you’re ready I’ll be ready to listen.”
We stared at each other in silence, waiting for the other person to make the first move. Eventually, Charley said, “I need a drink.”
I followed her to the kitchen and waited patiently while she filled two glasses with a healthy dose of scotch. Then I took a seat in a chair across from her at the table and waited for her to begin.
She pulled her knees up to her chest and took a long drink. “I told you almost everything already,” she said, once half of her drink was gone. “Ben and I dated, we broke up, he tried to hit me, and then he shot a bunch of people. But I’m sure you saw the notes that he wrote to me in the couple of weeks before the shooting.”
I nodded.
“He basically told me exactly what he was going to do.” She took a shuddering breath. “And I ignored him.”
“Charley, I read those notes. It’s easy to see it now, after the fact, but there’s no way you could’ve known he was serious back then.” The notes had made me angry, but if I hadn’t known all the details I would’ve just assumed they were from a bitter ex-boyfriend.
“You don’t get it, Nick. I think I did know he was telling the truth.” She took a deep breath and then unleashed the whole story.
Every day, sometimes multiple times in a day, she found notes waiting for her in her locker. Most of them were just Ben’s attempt to win her back, quick I love yous and I miss yous. But some of them were much, much darker.
The first one of those had started with an idle threat about making her pay for hurting him. But they got progressively more violent. Ben threatened to hurt her, to hurt her friends. Those notes were scarier, but she still believed it was just his temper getting the better of him. She had no idea just how evil he could be.
But then a couple of days before the shooting, he threatened to kill her. More exactly, he threatened to shoot her in the heart. She had been so paranoid driving home, looking in her rearview mirror every fifteen seconds, expecting him to appear out of nowhere and make good on his promise.
Charley had come so close to telling her parents about the notes, but they still didn’t even know that she had dated Ben. Then the next day she got another note, only this one was worse. Ben threatened to kill her and everyone around her. It was pretty much a confession of his endgame, but she still couldn’t believe it was possible. She hadn’t known that those notes weren’t meant to be a threat. They were a promise. A promise that he kept the next day when he opened fire in a crowded cafeteria.
I listened to every word she said and kept my reactions to a minimum.
“The police never did figure out why Ben did what he did. They questioned everyone, but no one at school even knew about us. I had the notes. I could’ve given them to the police and told them everything. I know that I should have done that. I knew it then and I know it now.” Charley sounded surprisingly calm, her face betraying no emotion other than guilt.
“All those parents lost their kids and they never knew why.” She finished the last of her drink. “I’m the only one that holds the key to that mystery and I’m too selfish to do anything about it.”
“Charley,” I started, then stopped.
“You don’t know what to say, do you?” She gave me a faint smile. “Me neither.”
I sighed and leaned forward, resting my elbows on my knees. “I think you made the only decision you could at the time, Charley. What you went through was tragic, and the choices you made are how you were able to survive. No one can fault you for that.”
“I can.” Her voice cracked. “I need a refill.”
“Stay.” I took her empty glass. “I’ll get it.”
When I came back to the table, I sat next to her, rather than across from her.
“One thing you never answered– why did you keep the notes?” I asked.
“Right after it happened, I spent hours locked in my room staring at those notes. If I had told just one person about them, maybe Tim and all those kids would still be alive. It was my way of punishing myself I guess.” In one large gulp, she almost finished her refill.
“But ten years? That’s a long time.”
“It is. But it’s also such a brief time.” She closed her eyes for a few seconds and when she reopened them, they were filled with unshed tears. “After the first few months, looking at the other things in that box was the only thing that made me feel a little better. The other notes, the picture, those things were my proof that Ben hadn’t always been a killer and that I hadn’t been a complete idiot for falling for him.”
“You never really know what people are capable of doing,” I agreed.
“Helpful,” she joked without smiling. “I don’t want to talk about this anymore.”
“Are you pushing me away again?”
“I’m trying, Nick.” She took my hand and gave it a tight squeeze. “This is hard for me.”
“I know.”
After a long pause, she said, “I think you had a good suggestion when you told me I should get out of town for a few days.”
“Really?” I hadn’t been expecting that.
“Yeah. I think I’m going to go home for a while.” She studied our interlocked fingers. “The school is having this reunion thing. I’m thinking about going to it.”
“A reunion?”
“My ten year reunion, to be exact.” She looked at me as I did the math in my head. “It’s actually closer to ten-and-a-half years, but the committee didn’t want to have it too close to the anniversary of the shooting.”
“That makes sense.” I couldn’t quite force a smile. “It sounds like a good idea.”
She poked me gently in the side. “You don’t sound very happy about it.”
“If it’s what you need to do, I completely support the decision.” I dropped a kiss on top of her head. “But that doesn’t mean I won’t miss you.”
“Aw.” She looked up and fluttered her eyes playfully at me. “You’re going to miss me? How sweet.”
“You love teasing me.” I frowned. “Are you saying you aren’t going to miss me?”
“Are you kidding?” She sat up and looked me dead in the eyes. “I’m going to miss the crap out of you.”
“So romantic,” I said, but this time I had no trouble smiling. “Now that we’ve finished our serious talk…”
Her eyes narrowed. “You have something else in mind?”
“I have a few ideas, actually.” I stood and pulled her to her feet.
“Thank you for making me open up about everything,” she said, looking hard into my eyes. “It was good for me.”
I couldn’t take my eyes off her. “You’re good for me, Charley.”
“I’m not sure I deserve that,” she said.
“I’m sure that you do.” I brushed my fingers along her jawline. “Can we just stay like this for a while?”
“I wouldn’t move from this spot for anything.” She leaned into me, resting her head on my chest and I circled my arms tighter around her body. Charley wasn’t just good for me, she made me better as well. I had never met anyone like her and I was going to do everything I could to keep her.